Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Good morning fellow knitters! I hope you are all having a great Wednesday. I wanted to get in a quickie WIP Wednesday post before heading off to work.

I have been diligently knitting away on my tank top, now titled "Pixlexia" (after one of my favorite characters- Venelope - from Wreck-it Ralph). I am so glad the color work sections are done, they were a pain to knit! I am still a bit worried about sizing, since the color work parts are tending to pull in a bit. Hopefully once I put it on that will be fixed. I am about an inch away from dividing for front and back and then the rest should fly by. I really want this done by next week: A new pair of socks is calling my name!

Also, I am considering submitting this somewhere or self publishing. I know that if I do so I can't have photos online (I'd delete them). Any suggestions? Should I ???

I spent last Saturday afternoon sitting in a field at a park a block from my house working on this watercolor painting. I did it ALL from life, which explains why I am so darn proud of it. When I set out to paint this scene I didn't imagine it would turn out this good, in fact I expected it to be a flop. Why did I paint the gazebo? My friend Jessica is getting married here this coming Saturday, and I woke up last Saturday with an idea to paint them a picture of their wedding spot as my gift. I plan to write "Where two hearts became one" at the top once I mat it.

And I finally started a summer painting for myself. I had an amazing critique and discussion with my painting professor that gave me a lot of ideas for future works. Since I can't do oils at home this summer, I decided to get some gouache and do some smaller "study" paintings. I didn't think I'd like painting with gouache but it turns out I LOVE IT. This was just an hour so far, but I can't wait to get off work at 5 tonight and paint some more!

And that my friends, is why I am feeling "Artsy Fartsy" today :P I hope the rest of the week flies by and that I am able to enjoy every minute of it. Happy Wednesday!

Sunday, May 26, 2013

:Last week I did "Moment of the week". This week I am continuing that idea but changing the title to "Photographic Sunday" and also allowing others to join in! I'll try and post earlier in the day next week!

Photographic Sundays-- A chance to share an image (or images) from the week with little to no other text or blog post.

My awesome brother fixing up my bike! :)

And my kitties!!

(So I had other photos I wanted to share but they disappeared off my camera mysteriously :( )

Friday, May 24, 2013

It's pretty much the middle of the year and after finishing my Salacia I decided to take a look at my 2013 goals, since I know the Salacia was on it. Turns out that I actually have more done from that list then I thought.

First of all, I was able to finish the very first thing on my list, knit an in-the-round pullover, Dragonflies. I am not going to go into detail here, but if you want more information, you can read my post about it.

I successfully finished her up last Saturday and proudly walked into my LYS wearing her, only to be met with great enthusiasm. Kennita and all my knitting friends were so proud of me and all agree this pattern was definitely made for me. :)

When I first saw this pattern in the Spring issue of Knitscene I knew it was going to be the first of many that I knitted out of it. I quickly rushed off to Wildflower where I had some amazing help picking the perfect yarn -- Nashua Natural Focus Ecologie Cotton. A lovely 100% Cotton worsted weight yarn, I fell in love the second I started knitting. It's so easy to hand and so easy to wash that I wish it wasn't going to be discontinued.

Starting out I was a bit worried. This pattern is intense lace and also in parts, which meant SEAMING. I have never seamed anything before so the idea scared me. The lace did too, but I quickly had the pattern memorized and ended up with very few mistakes on all 3 body pieces. (And the ones I do have you can't notice.) The sleeves however are loaded. There is something about the cellular lace stitch that always messes me up (See - Make up your mind tank).

Well I quickly worked through all the parts and was ready to seam. Once again, I am eternally grateful to have such an amazing LYS and people there to help me. Kennita walked me through the basic seaming process at knit night last week and before I knew it I was seaming like crazy. And you know what? It wasn't even that hard! That's right, seaming will no longer scare me when it comes to knitting. That's something I never thought I'd say!

Overall, this will be my favorite summer cardigan, I seriously think it is going to get it's money's worth and then some in wear. Besides my friend's wedding next week, I just see myself wearing it over any and everything. I am just too proud of it not to :)

And with that, another item is crossed off my bucket list:

Last year I wanted to conquer lace and I feel like I did. Well this year I want to FINISH something lace, with very few mistakes. I have some amazing bison blend yarn that would make a lovely lace scarf! - Although the lace scarf didn't happen, this is even better! (And as a bonus I can add seaming to that list!)Finally, I wanted to do a quick recap of my knitting progression on tops. When I started 4 years ago I never thought I'd be knitting sweaters, and now it's all I want to knit!

Date refers to finishing date :)

I hope everyone had a great week! I sure have. I spent all day yesterday at the cutest little coffee and book shop knitting away. It was amazing!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Well, summer break is officially here, and my job has officially started. I've been typing up supply lists and organizing class lists all week and loving every minute of it.

Another great thing about summer is that I can put myself on a more regular knitting schedule! I am actually getting stuff done enough to blog about it :) Which is exciting because I really missed blogging on a regular basis.

My pink and blue colorwork tank top is coming along great! I have a very interesting pattern planned for this one and I am so excited! I wish colorwork wasn't so slow to knit though. Thank god I'm doing it in the round or it would take even longer! I still want this to be done by the end of June! That's a hefty goal, but it's really my only large project right now.

Scrap yarn headbands are still being made also, as a nice break from the colorwork. This one is scrap yarn wool from Scotland. I think I am going to felt it - my first attempt at felting - because if it gets messed up I don't lose anything.

Although I haven't spun yarn in forever, I am about to have an adventure in spinning. My aunt found a lady through her guild that wanted to get rid of her llama fleece for FREE. So now I have 2 whole bags of uncleaned, unprocessed llama fleece and absolutely no idea what to do with it. I called the dry cleaners (as my aunt suggested) and they didn't know either. Anybody out there have a suggestion??

Finally, I decided to buy myself a "going away for summer" gift at Wildflower before I left town and ended up with this. I had been eyeing this skein of sock yarn for awhile but never could afford it. Well she had it in her clearance rack and that was too hard not to pass on so I broke down. After the tank is done this will likely become a lovely pair of socks!

I hope all of my blog-land friends are having a great week! I can't wait until I can really engross myself in my summer! :)

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Wow, life has really flown by. I haven't updated my blog in 2 weeks !! I don't know if I have ever gone that long. But I haven't had much knitting stuff to talk about, and art stuff has been at a bit of a stand still also. I mean did you guys really want to see the same projects with a few inches added? I didn't think so.

This week has been intense, oddly enough probably my most busiest all semester. I have been working every morning (I usually only work m/w/f) as well as studio. Although I get done with studio by 6, I haven't been home much, as many of my friends are graduating and thus last minute hang outs are in order.

But enough about my social life, I wanted to show you my current projects, since they have all changed quite a bit the last 2 weeks.

Remember the headbands I was making with scraps? Well I finally went through my stash and pulled out all of the bags of yarn that I consider scraps and put them into a different bag. I plan to work my way through this bag all summer, making headbands. I have 3 already! I really like my purple seed stitch one. !!

Salacia is off the needles and on the blocking board! Blocking was a b****-- I think my gauge was a bit off or something-- because it was stretching bigger than the measurements the book said. I have never had to block individual pieces so I hope this works! I am taking it over to Wildflower tonight to have Kennita help me seam it all up. Wish me luck!

When I was going through my stash last weekend I found a bunch of yarn that a fellow knit-nighter gifted me when she moved. Most of it is going to attempt to be de-stashed, but the pink cotton is in the process of becoming a summer tank. Partially improvised from a generic pattern, I am planning to do a colorwork band around the bottom of blue/pink checks (I have 3 skeins of pink, 1 of blue). I am having gauge problems (go figure) though. I casted on last night and it's too big. So I guess I'll be ripping out and cutting back. In an attempt to account for the yarn stretching I think I overdid my math. So I will be starting again! I am excited for this one!!

As the school year comes to a close (2 days!) I am busy working in studio and packing. I got an AMAZING art job back home but it starts Monday already. So I get to spend my weekend cleaning and packing. Ugh.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

I meant to update yesterday for WIP Wednesday, but time just kind of escaped me. So I am updating today instead, seeing as I feel like I haven't talked about my knitting in a pretty long time.

First up on my list is Salacia, which is knitting up very very fast. Which is a good thing because I want it done by June 1st. 1 month left! I finished the left front panel last night, leaving only the sleeves. I am still worried about seaming and blocking, but I'll cross that bridge soon enough and I know I will make it over alive.

Photo does no justice :(

I had an idea a couple weeks ago for my scrap yarns. I have been meaning to think of knew ways to pull my hair back at studio and have seen a few people with buns and bandannas/wraps. So I thought, why not knit my own? If I can ever figure out how to actually put my hair into a messy top bun (that's a whole other story) then these will be great to keep hair out of my face!

The first one is using some left over rainbow Mini Mochi I have from this month's knit club (See below). And to make my life easier, I am doing the same diagonals as my Salacia. Obviously Salacia is taking priority, but hopefully this summer I can knock some more scrap headbands out.

I love rainbows!

April's Knitting Monthly project was a stranded colorwork headband. I fell in love and knew I needed to make one! Plus I will always take advice on colorwork- it's something I want to get better at. The initial project was just vertical bars, but I mixed mine up a bit! I also found out, thanks to Kennita, that I have been throwing the opposite direction as most people in my knitting. Does that mean I'm going to switch? Of course not! haha. The way I decided to work this was by holding both yarns in one hand and just going through the one I needed at the time. It seemed to work. Oh and don't forget to keep the 'dominant' color on the bottom!

Finally, I wanted to ask opinions. I have a huge stack of these matted spindle drawings from the craft shows I did last year that I never sold. I need to clear out some stuff and am considering selling them. I thought about just posting on Facebook, but I don't know if people would understand the process behind them or just see them as abstract art (or does that matter?) or maybe Etsy where maybe people would get it? What would you guys recommend?? Also, what price range should I even consider? Or is it worth it at all..

It's May 2nd here in KS and yet the forecast is calling for snow. Silly Kansas, its supposed to be spring!